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Jennifer is our March student of the month. Checkout our interview together below!

Hi there, Jennifer! Tell me a bit about yourself.

My name is Jennifer Cameron and I work at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. I am the Associate Director of Human Resources for the Dental College. I’ve lived in Inwood for 17 years (come June) and I am very happy here. In fact, I like to think of myself as popular! If I could tell my high school self one thing it would be to have patience – one day you will be popular. I’m married to Rob Walsh and we have one son named Bryce. Bryce will be 15 soon – which is shocking!

Awesome. What brought you to yoga?

I don’t recall what brought me to yoga exactly. Let’s just say that genetically, I’m not gifted when in comes to flexibility. If paper money falls on the floor, I will do a quick cost benefit analysis to see if bending down to pick it up will be worth it (FYI – anything 10 dollars and over I’ll bend over for – under 10 and it’s a crap shoot). So, I came to yoga in the hopes of increasing my flexibility. That aspect of my practice (increased flexibility) has been, and continues to be, a sloooooooow process. I still can’t touch my toes with straight legs! I love the blocks!

And what brought you to Bread and Yoga?

In all honesty, the convenience of the Bread and Yoga location brought me here. What keeps me coming back to Bread and Yoga? The TEACHERS! I LOVE the teachers. Tom, Carolina, Kat, Meghan, Shawna! They are all so great and so different. Tom’s classes are so relaxed. He’s like, “what body part do you want to work on?” Then he creates a whole class around that. How cool is that? And Shawna? It’s like verbal ballet the way she gives such precise, detailed directions. She never confuses right and left – it’s truly amazing! And Carolina and Kat have such warm personalities and a great sense of humor. The teachers made me feel like the student of the month even before I was officially selected! Come for the convenience, stay for the teachers!

Also, I’m a total sucker for the message/theme of each class. The teachers have such a way of weaving a theme into class – they never sound cheesy!

Hahah, that’s absolutely beautiful to hear! How would you say your practice has evolved over time, from the beginning to now?

This is a tough one. In most aspects of my life, I’m pretty goal oriented, with a defined finish line in mind. I guess being able to shift out of that mindset, and just enjoy the process is the biggest shift for me.

There’s also a huge social aspect to my practice. I love the other students, and I love when I run into other students outside the studio (again, see my “popular” answer to the first question!) I do really love anchoring my week-ends around my yoga classes.

Does yoga impact your work life at all? How?

As with almost all jobs, my job can get pretty stressful. When I think about it, I try to channel Tom, or Kat, or Karolina, Meghan or Seana and just breathe! The other day when I got my mammogram, I found myself thinking, “just breathe, create space, etc” instead of fighting against the pain and discomfort. It still sucked, but the breathing made it a little less sucky (I guess).

How do you maintain balance and joy living in NYC?

People talk about how busy and overwhelming NYC is. And that is 100% true. But, overall, I’ve found NYC to be an incredibly warm and welcoming place to live. The friends I’ve made here are such good, generous people. There’s this perception that city life is more isolating than other environments and that city people are rude and abrupt. That has not been my experience. Example, I once dropped my wallet on the street. The person who found it, rung my buzzer and returned it to me before I even realized it was missing! (So, the take away there is to always keep your driver’s license current)

So, I can’t speak much to balance, but I can say that the residents of NYC have definitely made the inconvenience of living in NYC way more joyful!